An Interesting Family Tree

The Gospel story for this week, the fourth Sunday in Advent, is the account of Jesus' birth according to Matthew (Matthew 1:18-25). It starts out: "Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way." It goes on to describe Mary's unexpected pregnancy during the year of betrothal, Joseph's decision to handle things quietly but dismiss Mary and the baby anyway, and the angel's intervention to encourage Joseph to make a different choice .

But before any of this drama unfolds. Matthew starts his gospel with a genealogy, a "family tree" for Jesus.

And the content of it is very interesting. It includes adoption, intermarriage, unwed pregnancy, racy stories,faithfulness, sin, wonderful successes, incredible failures, and individuals who have experienced both success and failure.

Jesus is described as "the son of David, the son of Abraham." That doesn't mean that Jesus was their biological son, rather that he is a descendant of both. Matthew starts the family tree with Abraham, the "father" of the Jewish faith, who with his wife Sarah were the recipients of God's promise. They traveled from their home in Ur (today in Iraq) to begin a new community of God's people. Fourteen generations later is David, the great king of Israel. People in Jesus' time were still longing for the return of the nation to the "glory days" of King David.

But the family tree in Matthew is richer and more diverse than the legendary figures.

Though such a genealogy in Jesus of Nazareth's time would typically focus only on the fathers of each generation, this family tree lists five key women as well. The first is Tamar, whose story is told in Genesis 38. She is a colorful, strong, resourceful woman who rose above being victimized to outwit her integrity-starved father-in-law in a story that is both scandalous and delightful.

The second woman, Rahab, is found in Joshua Chapter 2 (and in artwork above). A resident of Jericho and reputedly a prostitute, she helped protect spies from Israel and was honored for her service. Later she married an Israelite, and gave birth to a son named Boaz, a good man who became husband of the third woman on our list, Ruth. The Old Testament Book of Ruth is her story. Ruth was a foreigner from Moab whose faithfulness to her Israelite mother-in-law Naomi, after Naomi's sons had died, is legendary. The fourth woman mentioned is Bathsheba, with whom King David had his son Solomon, the future king. The story of David and Bathsheba (IISamuel 11) is a troubling one and demonstrates that even the great hero David is deeply flawed. The way that the family tree refers to Bathsheba only as "the wife of Uriah" is pointing out the wrongness and the tragedy of this part of the story (1:6). The last woman mentioned is Mary, mother of Jesus. Joseph is referred to as "the husband of Mary," though of course, when Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit they were not yet married.

Matthew follows the lineage of Abraham and David to emphasize that Jesus is indeed the Jewish Messiah. But since it is Mary, not Joseph, who is Jesus' biological parent, the Gospel basically says that the bloodline of David was "adopted" into the story!! God's adoptive history of love is every bit as thick as blood relation; in God's love, sometimes thicker!

The mention of the women changes the way of looking at people and value from the outset. Of course, Jesus' ministry will do that so much more! Several of the key people in the family tree

are immigrants, "outsiders." There are all different kinds of people on the list, with different abilities and histories. God claims them all, and weaves everything about their lives into the larger story of Jesus and the world's salvation.

Work on your family tree. Find out what you can about the generations which preceded you; who and where you came from. What key decisions did your parents and ancestors make that impacted your life later? Whose faith has influenced you? Who has God adopted in your story?How does God make you a key part of God's Family Tree?